Dropping the fee

Investec Asset Management will reduce the initial fees on all of its unit trusts open to new direct investment.

They have reduced the initial fees for all new direct investments into their unit trusts from 2.0% to only 0.25% for equity, absolute and asset allocation funds; and from 0.40% to 0.25% on fixed income funds.

As initial fees are broken down into the asset manager's fee and the financial advisor fee, independent financial advisors are still able to charge an additional initial fee of up to 3%.

This fee is however negotiated between a client and their advisor. This means the maximum published initial unit trust fee will now be 3.25% (reduced from a maximum of 5.00%) on equity products; and 0.85%, (reduced from 1.00%) on fixed income products.

The current annual management fees on Investec's unit trusts remain unchanged.